


Bright Lights

by Systematic_Stardust



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other, ensemble fic, everyone dies, except baze and chirrut, i rewrote the ending to be sadder, im sorry, most of the relationships are just vague and friendly, this is a "canon compliant" fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 05:44:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8956747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Systematic_Stardust/pseuds/Systematic_Stardust
Summary: Everyone dies on the beach, not just Jyn and Cassian. The Battle of Scarif and everything is the same except instead of dying separately, they all die together.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by pseudoanalytics

\----

 

Jyn climbs to the top of the tower believing Cassian is dead. Maybe that’s why her whole body feels numb, but it’s easier to keep climbing if she decides she’s numb because of exertion.

 

\----

 

“Chirrut!”

 “I am one with the Force and the Force is with me I am one with the Force and the Force is with me I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.”

 “Chirrut!”

 “I am one with the Force and the Force is with me I am one with the Force and the Force is with me I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.”

“Chirrut!” Baze feels like he’s underwater. His movements are slow, and he can’t possibly be seeing right. He can’t possibly be watching Chirrut walk across the battlefield, armed with nothing but his belief in the Force. He has yet to be hit by a single blast, has yet to stray from his course, but Baze can feel the end of it all burning at the back of his throat and stinging in the corners of his eyes. He can see Chirrut’s acceptance even as he walks away. The tension he usually carries in his shoulders, a habit from years and years of blindness and perception that goes far, but not far enough, is gone. He can’t see his face, but Baze knows that there are no lines on it. He smiles briefly, proud of him, proud of _his_.

 Baze surprises himself by loosening his death grip on his blaster. The tears are no surprise. He will not watch the man he loves walk towards death with stoicism. They have shared too much. A lifetime together. Baze was a different man before he met Chirrut. There will be no Baze after Chirrut, that much has always been exceedingly clear to him.

 

\----

 

His foot runs into the controls and he searches for the master switch. He’ll know it when he finds it.

_I am one with the Force and the Force is with me I am one with the Force and the Force is with me._

 There was always an embarrassing combination of the Force and Baze in his mind. It was silly and bordered on inappropriate, but they both protected him, both supported him, and both felt completely outside the realm of the ordinary. He has spent his life swept up in the search to find the Force and grounded by his love for Baze, a force equally as mysterious and equally as strong as the Force of old.

This all passes in an instant, and he finds the master switch with a surge of pride and contentment that nearly drowns out the buzzing at the back of his neck that signals the Force protected him this long, but it will no longer. He thinks of Baze and all he did to help him and all he did to humor him and to put up with his obsessive mantras and stubborn beliefs.

 He thinks of Baze, and then, momentarily, of nothing but bright lights and searing pain ripping through his right arm and side. He is pushed back several feet, but it hardly matters, he was able to flip the switch, and now Bodhi will be able to send a message to the rebel fleet above.

He doesn’t delude himself with dreams of survival, but it would be nice to be near Baze once more. They have been through so much. The _galaxy_ has been through so much. Chirrut is not a young man. e was born into the height of galactic peace, only to see the rise of the empire and to watch its hold on the galaxy tighten as he grew older. Young people like Jyn and Bodhi forget that there are those who remember democracy and peace, the Jedi. They forget that the world wasn’t always like this. He did all that he could and even now, in his last moments, he is trying to make a difference.

The pain is immense, but not enough to dull his senses. He hears Baze shouting his name and the unmistakable sound of his blaster and his unique footsteps running towards him.

He smiles.

Baze reaches Chirrut, and Chirrut reaches somewhat desperately for his hand. Baze takes it but with more urgency than expected.

“Get up. This is not where you die.”

“I appreciate that, but I think you might be misunderstanding the situation.”

Baze hauls Chirrut to his feet despite the protests.

“What about Bodhi? Will he be okay?” Chirrut asks as Baze starts pulling him to cover at the same time as he somehow manages to fend off more stormtroopers.

“I am one with the Force and the Force is with me. I am one with the Force and the Force is with me,” Baze says through gritted teeth, with more aggression than Chirrut ever has. He doubts that Baze is going to accept that whatever the outcome of this day is, it is all just as the Force wills it.

“I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.” This time they say it together.

The air is charged with blaster fire yet somehow-- and Chirrut is careful not to consider it a miracle-- he and Baze have found shelter. They have done their part and here they can wait in each other’s arms until the next moment, the next chance, the next anything.

 

\----

 

Bodhi feels like his whole body is vibrating, and he’s worried that his vision might be going dark around the edges, but this is not the time for that. They just activated the master switch, and he has to run to the ship now. It pains him to go out there, really it does. It takes everything he has to run out of cover and through the fray to get to the ship. He has to connect to the radio signal, he has to, and obviously he _will_ , but that does not necessarily mean that he _wants_ to, and as much as he wishes he were calm and committed in battle the way Cassian is, the simple fact of it is that it is hard for Bodhi to put his own life in danger. Defecting was different. He had Galen’s help and support, and everything is easier when you’re emotionally biased. This is all a bit too real. It has honestly been too real since Saw Gerrera and his lie-monster of doom.

He laughs to himself upon realizing that he made it to his ship. He is having some trouble stopping the laughter, and he stumbles over his words as he sends his message up, up far away to the rebel fleet. There is too much going on around him, and he can’t quite stay on topic, but he forces himself to try. He has to. He can barely believe that it’s working. Nothing has gone wrong with the plan yet, and once the message is sent and received he’s happier than he’s ever been.

“This is for you, Galen,” he whispers to himself, because, why not, it’s true. He knows the man is dead, but just the knowledge that he was part of his work, his plan, and that at the end of it all, he helped the plan succeed, is more than he could have ever hoped for. Amazing.

His hands are still shaking. He still feels another strange urge to laugh. The usual desire to fidget with his goggles returns; he hadn’t even realized that he forgot about that.

He sees the grenade.

His hands stop shaking and everything goes silent, except the need to polish the goggles he doesn’t even need to wear; that stays as persistent as ever, a signal of sorts that reminds him that some things haven’t changed, and some things will never change. The world is too quiet for him. He is comfortable in the din of Jedha’s streets, the ubiquitous roar of a cargo ship, the chatter of a home, this new slowed-down and self-contained silence is petrifying. He can see the light on the grenade blinking, but he can’t hear the beeping it should be making. He is torn between acceptance of his fate and primal fear.

He scurries back. He stumbles and half-crawls half-runs towards the front of his ship. He didn’t know what to do and doesn’t know what he’s doing besides obeying an evolutionary need to _get away_ from the thing that’s about to blow him up. He isn’t thinking about survival, just about distance, about Galen, about Cassian, about Jyn, about Baze and Chirrut, about the cargo ship that he misses, the tie-fighters and x-wings that he never got to fly, about his goggles, about Rogue One, about the bright light and cold-fire pain that finally, finally bursts behind him, breaking the prison of silence but also silencing the racket in his head.  

He opens his eyes and sees tainted and blurry blue and something menacing in the distance, far away and shaded like a moon at midday.  

 

\----

 

Jyn is alive.

Cassian is alive.

These two truths wrap around each other in their deceptive simplicity.  They don’t need any elaboration as they limp together, unsure of any purpose or destination. They are simply alive, together, for now.

The fighting on the beach has dwindled down to scattered skirmishes. It seems that either both sides have exhausted their forces or that somehow everyone could tell that the mission was completed. The mission was completed. It feels like a dream, and for the first time, Cassian is aware of just how idyllic and dream-like this place is. The colors are vibrant and he hates that there is so much death on this beach which must usually be so perfect. This really was a strange place for an Imperial outpost. The planet was much better suited for vacationing than guarding.

They walk through the debris and the dead, being very careful not to look at any of the faces, they do not want to face their losses head-on, Cassian especially. He was their Captain. This was his mission.

Jyn walks forward, face locked in an sturdy and stoic glare. She nearly misses Baze’s rasp.

“Little Sister.”

But she doesn’t miss it. She almost drops Cassian as she hurries over to the pair. They are clutching each other and look close to death, and something is off… Jyn finally sees the whole picture. Not only are they holding each other, but they are supporting a badly wounded Bodhi.

Jyn and Cassian collapse next to them. They are both in tears, but neither is willing to admit it. Baze wipes Jyn’s eyes gently as Chirrut smiles in the wrong direction. Knees and foreheads touch, and Cassian clutches at Bodhi’s hand even as the pilot grimaces in pain. He is rather burnt. Chirrut compares him to slightly overdone toast.

However, the very real pain caused by their laughter is a reminder that this is not going to be a perfect victory. Bodhi nods in the direction of what Baze and Chirrut have already seen.

The Death Star looms in the sky, as much an uninvited and foreign moon as always. Jyn pretends not to be startled when she feels Cassian’s hand on hers. There is so much understanding and care in that one touch. They are all leaning on everyone else. Chirrut’s hand has never left Baze’s, and with his free hand, Baze alternates between clutching his friend’s robes and distributing vaguely comforting gestures to the others. Bodhi polishes his goggles when he isn’t staring at Jyn and Cassian. If he’s honest, he can hardly believe that two people as hardened and independent and fierce as they are would ever be connected to someone as ordinary as him, but it happened, and it is how he will be remembered. He thinks he likes that an awful lot, and unfortunately this causes him to keep smiling even in these dire last moments.

The initial blast from the Death Star rips the air to shreds, and Jyn cannot help but embrace Cassian with all the strength she has left. He was constantly pulling her away. He was always forcing her to let go and move on. She has been running all her life, avoid attachments, avoiding loss, only to have everyone she loved torn away from her. Her mother, Saw Gerrera, her father. But while Cassian was there, forcing her away from her loss, forcing her forward, he accidentally became the one constant. He accidentally built her a new home.

Jyn lingers with Cassian, but faces the rest of this new home as the shock wave rumbles closer. Bodhi desperately hugs Cassian, and Jyn watches them all with a feeling reminiscent of those days with her parents on the farm. They made it here. They are all alive, together, for now.

She turns to the bright light of destruction. They face the imminent and disgustingly beautiful wall of luminous death, and _for now_ transitions to a time of the past. Time moves on, and forces set in motion stay in motion. They are enveloped in light as the rebellion continues on above. In almost no time at all, they are nothing more than a memory, a story, a legend. They are now as much a part of history as the Death Star they helped destroy, burnt into time with the bright light of fickle stars.

**Author's Note:**

> so i watched rogue one and was like, yes, this needs to be sadder. also it's unabashedly chirrut/baze. they're married don't fight me


End file.
